c. 2007 Religion News Service

SEATTLE _ This week’s religious yammerings reminded me of the classic “what would Jesus do” line in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and her Sisters:” “If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”

_ A Manhattan art gallery canceled its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked Jesus after New York’s Cardinal Edward Egan called the sculpture “scandalous” and a “sickening display.” He added, “this is something we will not forget.”

_ David Cordero, an art student in Chicago, constructed a sculpture of Sen. Barack Obama as Jesus, complete with blue neon halo. “All of this is a response to what I’ve been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins,” Cordero said.

_ Focus on the Family founder James Dobson declared that former Sen. Fred Thompson is an unacceptable presidential candidate because, “I don’t think he’s a Christian; at least that’s my impression.” Spokesman Gary Schneeberger clarified that while Dobson didn’t believe Thompson to be a member of a non-Christian faith, he nevertheless “has never known Thompson to be a committed Christian _ someone who talks openly about his faith,” adding, “we use that word _ Christian _ to refer to people who are evangelical Christians.”

This is today’s “argument culture,” in which political, artistic and religious communication ranges from hostile to frivolous and religionists are combatants in any number of “culture wars.” The politicization and trivialization of Jesus by the religious and irreligious alike may explain why, in a nation where 82 percent of people say they are spiritual seekers, most of us seek and never find.

During Holy Week it is good to be reminded that Jesus was a man of few words, unlike many who claim to speak for or about him.

This occurred to me as I sat in a packed movie theater watching “Into Great Silence,” a documentary filmed at the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. The film begins with a biblical reference to the story of the Prophet Elijah, who tried to find God in the earthquake and the fire, but discovered that God was found in a still, small voice.

Because there is no musical score or narrator to explain what we are seeing, one reviewer says the film “is less like a movie and more like a sensory-deprivation experiment.” For 162 minutes, we simply observe the routine, daily life of silent monks _ praying, repairing a shoe, cutting each other’s hair and listening for God in the quietness.

I asked myself: Why in irreligious Seattle _ which has been described as a “none-zone” because 24 percent of people here say they have no religious affiliation _ did hundreds of viewers show up to watch the mundane “in-activities” of a quiet, cloistered religious community of devout monks?

Could French mathematician and philosopher Pascal be right? Is there within each human a God-shaped vacuum, a space that only God can fill? If so, it seems secular Seattle has concluded, and I think rightly, that if God is to be found, it will be in quietness, not in the fire and thunder of today’s religious and cultural verbosity.

Which brings me back to the quietness of the Crucifixion, where Jesus famously uttered only seven last words on the cross. Jesus taught that inheriting eternal life requires “loving God and your neighbor as yourself,” and he used his final words sparingly to do just that.

He expressed loving obedience to God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

He attended to the needs of his family and followers: “Woman, behold your son!” and turning to his disciple, “Behold your mother!”

To outsiders and seekers he offered not condemning or hostile words, but compassionate, healing inclusive words: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” and “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

His personal narrative was sparse: “I thirst!” and “It is finished!”

Based on his example, Jesus’ followers would be wise to heed the advice of St. Francis, who urged Christians to “preach the gospel and if you must, use words.” God, it seems, is found in the great silences of love, forgiveness, service and compassion.

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)

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KRE/LF END STAUB